IDC: Only 500K Ultrabooks Sold So Far

[piesquared]

Of course, much of that growth would depend on notebooks and the adoption of Ultrabooks, which not only carry Intel's hope to sell more processors, but the hopes of an entire industry that you and I will walk into Best Buy, Fry's or hhgregg and replace an aging system with an ultrathin expensive notebook. Apparently, that has not happened yet on a wider scale, as IDC estimates that only 500,000 Ultrabooks were sold in H1. This compares to forecasted sales of about 225 million notebooks for the year. We remember that Ultrabooks were predicted by Intel to capture about 30 to 40 percent of the market once fully available. "Ultrabooks have not yet produced a significant rise in volumes

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-ultrabook-notebook,16289.html

WOW, good job intel. lol Yet another bold prediciton by intel, way to drive the industy! Their latest attempt to corner the market appears to be sinking like the Itanic... Fortunately AMD with HSA will actually give consumers something compelling instead of the same old boring ideas.

 

[busydude]

Ultrabooks are at least a good step in the right direction.

Their latest attempt to corner the market appears to be sinking like the Itanic...

Ahahahahahah, yes that is the precise reason why AMD is also vying to compete with Intel in that market.

 

[OCGuy]

Good thing they own the CPU and graphics market. They make an OK SSD too.

Can't say the same about any of their rivals....

 

[Arkaign]

The problem I see it, is that roughly equivalent or sometimes better regular notebooks are available for about half the price or less of these "ultra" books. Many people, when faced with a style over substance choice like that, may choose to save $500-$700 and get something that isn't super thin/light. It's not like a regular 5lb notebook is insanely heavy.

 

[Zor Prime]

Gotta agree with Arkaign.

I like the idea of ultrabooks. I'd love to own one. But I'm not using my money to buy one.

I could buy a regular laptop with a whole lot more oomph behind it for the same price.

If I wanted extreme-portability, I'd go with a tablet. If I wanted extreme-performance while retaining portable functionality, I'd go with a regular laptop.

If prices dropped down into regular laptop-land, then ultrabooks will become a hit.

 

[2is]

Ive got a MacBook Air (my first ultra book) and I can tell you with absolute confidance, I will never buy another laptop that isn't an ultra-book. The combination of power, battery live and portability is worth their asking price IMO.

 

[Abwx]

Production cost of thoses ultra rip offs are inherently lower than the
usual notebooks ones ; yet , it s double the price...

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Of course, much of that growth would depend on notebooks and the adoption of Ultrabooks, which not only carry Intel's hope to sell more processors, but the hopes of an entire industry that you and I will walk into Best Buy, Fry's or hhgregg and replace an aging system with an ultrathin expensive notebook.

I think I found their problem.

 

[geenp]

Production cost of thoses ultra rip offs are inherently lower than the
usual notebooks ones ; yet , it s double the price...

I don't think so. Acer has already complained that they are unable to make profits on some of the models. Would explain why they would price so close to Apple, it's obviously not ideal for them because it has never worked before.

 

[philipma1957]

The problem I see it, is that roughly equivalent or sometimes better regular notebooks are available for about half the price or less of these "ultra" books. Many people, when faced with a style over substance choice like that, may choose to save $500-$700 and get something that isn't super thin/light. It's not like a regular 5lb notebook is insanely heavy.

true

 

[dma0991]

There is a place for Ultrabooks except that many are willing to compromise on having less features, cheaper and lighter(tablets) or less portability, cheaper and heavier(laptops). Both choices being driven by the cost that the user has to pay unless you're mind controlled to only buy products that resembles a fruit.

As for me, what matters more than form factor is battery life. Ultrabooks does not improve battery life in any way and most cheaper 8 hour laptops will put it to shame. I'm more than willing to sacrifice a little bit of weight for the additional battery life.

 

[pelov]

The hardware just doesn't suit the form factor. And because of the thin nature you develop persistent problems that plague almost every manufacturer -

- poor keyboard layout and feedback due to how shallow the keys have to be.
- battery life, even while sporting a 17W TDP chip, isn't impressive due to the size limitation on the battery. Considering most processors at 35W mostly idle and they have larger batteries as well, you actually get better battery life with modern notebooks than you do with ultrabooks.
- Though the i5s and i7s have turbo boost, they can't keep it up for more than a fraction of a second due to TDP constraints and constantly throttle.
- the throttling issue doesn't just plague the CPU end but also the IGP, causing some severe stuttering in games (if you can even manage to play them at acceptable frame rates).
- There are no weight restrictions on ultrabooks. They stretch from 2lbs to 5lbs. I'm not sure how a 5lb "Ultrabook" is more portable than a regular laptop.
- Plain ol' laptops can reach the same weight as ultrabooks and they're much cheaper.
- Soldering in of RAM and gluing in of batteries... What the hell?
- The jet engine fan. The slim design coupled with a slim intake/exhaust means that most ultrabooks have fans that are more audible than your regular laptop.
- Price, and this is the worst of the bunch. Right now, Intel and the manufacturers are selling ultrabooks as fashion accessories rather than as an ultraportable PC. If somebody wants to buy a fashion accessory they'd be buying Apple anyway. This needs to change and fast. Intel charges too much for the processors and Ultrabook designers, even at the current prices, are operating at sub 7% margins. As a result, Intel isn't selling anywhere near as many as they thought they would and the manufacturers aren't making any money off of them due to poor sales and low margins.

Ultrabooks need a serious makeover.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I will generally agree with the rest of the posters. I think there is a place for ultrabooks, but more of a small, specialized segment instead of a volume seller like intel is projecting. The problem is they are kind of in between a tablet and a regular laptop. You give up a lot of performance and thermal headroom vs a regular laptop at the same price, yet do not have as much portability as a tablet. If win 8 can bring a good touch interface to laptops that will allow getting rid of the mouse, they would be much more attractive IMO. If I were in business and on the road a lot, I could see paying the price for one, but otherwise I probably would get a regular laptop. After owning a tablet, however, I am very disappointed in that formfactor, and would buy either a regular laptop, ultrabook, or smartphone before buying another tablet.

 

[Ferzerp]

FUD about Intel from piesquared? Who would have thought!

 

[Gunbuster]

They make a metal chassis laptop and sit it next to the Macbook air in retail but put in the cheapest 720p screen they could find and a horrible touch pad. I wonder what the consumer is going to pick...

 

[Meghan54]

FUD about Intel from piesquared? Who would have thought!

Exactly what I was thinking. So damned predictable.

 

[grkM3]

that article is a lie,I have been waiting for the ivy bridge ultra books to go on sale all year,I have looked at them since ces and looked at the acer,asus,hp books and read as much as I could about them since the showing in vegas.

They finally went on sale june 5th but could not ship until the 25th(i think that was an ivy thing)I ordered the day they went on sale on hp.com(june 5th)and I just got my ultrabook a few days ago,almost a full 6 weeks after paying

They just came out and toms is saying where are the sales lol

I have a thread about my ultrabook and I will never go back to a reg laptop,It flys and there is no issues with throttling at all,it runs cold and I have still yet to hear the fan even turn on.

the keyboard is perfect position and everyone that saw it at work was so impressed that 2 people ordered one on the spot.

I have only charged the thing once in the last 4 days and have been using it non stop and already broke 7 hours run time.

on my ultrabook the ram is intergrated but the battery can come out in about 5 min,its made to be replaced so I dont know why the poster above is spreading so much hate about ultrabooks.

I took my ultrabook apart in less than a min lol

on the price,I paid 1168 for an I7 ivy,128 gb ssd,4gb ram,and that also included an xbox 360.the extra money over a reg laptop is well worth the premium.I mean under 3lbs and 8.5 hours battery life?

pelov if you spend 10 min with my hp you will order one trust me bro

 

[beginner99]

Most consumers are clueless and hence don't get that an ultra-book with ssd will feel much faster than a crappy standard 15" one with 5400 rpm hdd (but better cpu).

Also they don't care about the crappy screens (admittedly most ultra-books are not great here either but there are some that are). basically only thing that matters is price and hence ultra-books are only bought by a small amount of users, probably enthusiast that actually need a real mobile computer or already have a beefy desktop and prefer something light for couch surfing and so on.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Doesn't qualify as an Ultrabook, but I absolutely love my Alienware M11x R1's size, power, weight and battery life.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Most PC laptop buyers aren't interested in them to begin since for them the overriding factor is cost, cost and cost. The rest would be far more likely to find the MBAs a better (subjective) value for money.

 

[Dribble]

As far as the general public are concerned:
-If you are willing to spend and are hip and trendy you buy a macbook.
-For everything else you buy a windows notebook.

Unfortunately intel is trying for the hip and trendy market which isn't particularly interested due to the lack of apples on the lid.

 

[2is]

Production cost of thoses ultra rip offs are inherently lower than the
usual notebooks ones ; yet , it s double the price...

Link to your source please?

 

[pelov]

that article is a lie,I have been waiting for the ivy bridge ultra books to go on sale all year,I have looked at them since ces and looked at the acer,asus,hp books and read as much as I could about them since the showing in vegas.

Not quite sure how them coming up with a figure that doesn't jive with what you want to believe makes it a lie... Ultrabooks aren't selling well. They didn't pull these numbers out of their behind.

They finally went on sale june 5th but could not ship until the 25th(i think that was an ivy thing)I ordered the day they went on sale on hp.com(june 5th)and I just got my ultrabook a few days ago,almost a full 6 weeks after paying

The 500k figure refers to both Sandy and Ivy Ultrabooks, meaning all Ultrabooks on the market. Availability isn't the problem here, but if you do consider availability an issue then I'm not sure how that's supposed to make the sales figures look better. If anything, it makes the Ultrabook agenda look worse.

They just came out and toms is saying where are the sales lol

No, they've been out since last year and Intel is pushing them aggressively, it just isn't working out.

I have a thread about my ultrabook and I will never go back to a reg laptop,It flys and there is no issues with throttling at all,it runs cold and I have still yet to hear the fan even turn on.

It throttles. I can guarantee you with 100% certainty that it throttles, and that's both the IGP and the CPU. You don't have a magical Ultrabook that defies the laws of physics and somehow trumps its TDP constraints. It throttles.

the keyboard is perfect position and everyone that saw it at work was so impressed that 2 people ordered one on the spot.

This is really a matter of preference but I was speaking generally. Because of the slim nature of Ultrabooks, the keys have to be shallow and as a result you get little feedback. There are Ultrabooks with a great keyboard layout but the layout is only one factor here.

I have only charged the thing once in the last 4 days and have been using it non stop and already broke 7 hours run time.

That's going to depend on usage. I urge you to take a look at the reviews and you'll see that newer laptops will beat out newer Ultrabooks in battery life.

on my ultrabook the ram is intergrated but the battery can come out in about 5 min,its made to be replaced so I dont know why the poster above is spreading so much hate about ultrabooks.

This depends on the manufacturer, but as they get slimmer then soldering is more common. It shouldn't be happening, though. It's a horrible idea.

on the price,I paid 1168 for an I7 ivy,128 gb ssd,4gb ram,and that also included an xbox 360.the extra money over a reg laptop is well worth the premium.I mean under 3lbs and 8.5 hours battery life?

pelov if you spend 10 min with my hp you will order one trust me bro

I have. I've been looking at these things since last year. I want to buy a nice little laptop with a great display that's under 4lbs with great battery life, but I can buy such a laptop with a full 35W processor, upgrade the parts on my own (including the RAM), have better battery life and all for less than an Ultrabook. The drawbacks and the price for such a design just don't interest me considering the already available alternatives at cheaper price. I expect Ultrabooks to get better and more appealing with Haswell and by then some of these issues will probably be smoothed over.

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

I own Asus Zenbook UX31 and I totally love it. I am so happy with this laptop in both the quality and performance. It is so nice to be able to whip it out and have it up and running in seconds.

 

[Subyman]

I think its too early to really know. As a test, I asked my parents and brother if they had ever heard of an ultra book. Nope. They aren't in the tech industry, but are still savvy consumers. I think they need more time to integrate into the market. Once people use them and see that they offer most of the power of a large laptop in a small, stylish package, they will start to move to them especially once the price comes down a bit more.

All of the people that I have talked to that have actually purchased one or used on extensively have said they will never go back. I think its just a matter of awareness.